Solid Mastermind, a good way for a cheap look under the hood.

  For all of us attending the Huntsville ST4 rollout there was a bonus. One month of Platinum level access to the Solid Mastermind web site tutorials and material for SE.   http://www.solidmastermind.com/

    I have been fiddling with it for the last few days and shocking as this thought may be have a few things to say about it. The video clips here just appeal to me more than printed manuals would as watching something being done is a faster way for me to learn than reading stuff put out by companies that are out of date before you get them.

  Technical material for the software you buy has always been one of my pet peeves in that you either muddle through on your own with the scarce and incomplete corporate literature that is available, get “official” training from VARS or Corporate or find another user who will help you . I did this years ago with VX and it cost about $1,500.00 for each person for two courses of training. This is a pretty typical cost I am finding out and NO you can’t record what you are looking at so you see what you see in the classroom once, and then leave with so much stuffed in there that most of it is useless.  They did however give us a stack of books printed before the release of the version we were in training for and as you can imagine it was allready incomplete and each service pack made it more so.  Does this sound familiar to you?

    So I go to the Mastermind site and check it out. I went through five of the ST3 part modeling series and was a little surprised at how much I did not know. I am in the same boat as many as we sit down and figure out enough to get us through the job or project at a reasonable level of efficiency and stop there. It was a bit startling to see all the bits and pieces I had missed on my own in these videos.

   So I come to some conclusions about all this. It really does seem for whatever reason that third parties produce better training material. Mastermind fits into this category and beats the pants off anything I have seen from Siemens or SE and I am glad to see Mastermind and Siemens get together as this does fill a sorely lacking need.  For ST4 I am going to be there as a cheap way to get up to speed on what is going on.

   The thought occured to me though that this site also serves well those of you who wonder just what is under the hood with SE. I know all the costs in moving from one program to another. I know all or most of the excuses used to stay or go from your current program as I have either read them or said them. I can say without reservation that if you want to know about SE and it’s capabilities you will be well served in getting a couple of months here. As far as I can see it is by the month by the way with the most expensive level being $97.00 per month.

      Lets talk user to user right now. There is no greater dis-service another user can do to a potential user than gloss over the problems or capabilities of the software he uses because he is a mindless fanboy and just wants you and himself to believe he made the best choice. You have a lot riding on what you use for a living  and if you are like me you want truth. Let me know the shortcomings and and pluses I can decide what I need from there. Every software has it’s trash side and it’s good side and you just need what best fits your situation.

   I will recommend, if you are interested at all in SE, that you go here for a couple of months and see exactly what it does and does not do. Kick the tires without kicking your wallet and time in the butt first by seeing exactly what the capabilities are without having to first buy the software to find out.

  I like what I see, with both SE and Solid Mastermind, and I think you will to.